Boots made of fury

A poem about the Violence Against Women Act and Georgia’s 2022 Senate Election

“These boots are made for walkin’ 1
And that’s just what they’ll do
One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you.”

El Paso man beat his immigrant wife.
She went to court to stop him. He called ICE.
Why might women tolerate abuses law forbids?
Probably because complaining risks her job, her home,
her kids.

A Georgia celebrity beat his wife
Sought treatment, healed, “just like a broken leg.”
His journey erased threats to kill with gun or knife
That send poorer men to prison.
Who cares if he’s called himself a powder keg?

Boots made of fury (as sold on TV):
Apparel worn by men who are unfit to lead.

Against women, violence is a crime
Since the very first codes of laws
And probably even immemorial time.
Every bruise, ache, crack, or break
Heals in its own course, in bodies and in minds.

1 — Nancy Sinatra, These Boots Are Made for Walkin’

Occasionally, memes should be more interesting than a split second judgment. Take this one:

Meme spotted on Facebook. Warnock really CAN speak coherently. The “beat his wife” allegations were not proven in court, but that doesn’t mean they did or didn’t happen. I know nothing about the ‘deadbeat father’ allegations. It’s a pity nobody links this to the “Violence Against Women Act” — which matters a lot.

In 2022, Raphael Warnock voted to renew the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), which had previously been renewed in 2000, 2005, and 2013 by Republican and Democratic presidents alike.

It lapsed under Trump in 2018. When it lapsed, that didn’t mean violence against women was suddenly permissible. Rather, various remedies available to women victimized by certain forms of violence might be temporarily deferred.

Portions of VAWA that work by financing women’s shelters might be covered through one set of bills or accounting measures, but other provisions are just as important to trying to recover after violence:

• If a woman reports her husband’s abuse, he gets arrested and loses his job, they both might get evicted from their home. If she gets evicted in one state, can she move to another state and find housing while that eviction sits on her record?
• Child custody determinations are generally made in the county where the children resided at the time of a break. Yet if a woman flees one state to escape an abusive partner, would she be forced to travel back to her old state of residence to obtain custody?
• If an elderly woman becomes dependent on a spouse or boyfriend who is also a caretaker, who will intervene? what special provisions exist?

And on and on. In the real world, simply locking up a perpetrator of violence against women doesn’t actually resolve the problems.

In Georgia, in 2022, a tight senate race underway between Herschel Walker and Raphael Warnock has focused on the personal: did Walker threaten his wife?

The police never charged him with that, he was never convicted of it, but did it happen?

How might Walker vote if/when the Violence Against Women Act comes up for renewal yet again? Warnock cosponsored the renewal and expansion bill in 2022. Trump sabotaged its renewal. Walker is beholden to Trump.

“Just like I broke my leg — I put the cast on. It healed,’ the former football star explained in his first major interview as a political candidate related to the allegations and his struggle with mental health.

Katelyn Caralle, “Trump-backed Senate candidate says he has ‘held himself accountable’ for domestic violence…” Daily Mail.com, December 14, 2021

Walker allegedly held a razor blade to his ex-wife’s neck. That’s a serious crime. Most people do not have the luxury of ‘holding themselves accountable’ and choosing how to heal.

These “stories” are exercises, not poetry. Words have immense power — I experiment, and rhyme may amplify or disarm that power. So may laws.

An entire feminist literature may exist that centers violence against women: if someone could guide me to those works, I’d read them with open eyes, particularly if some of the works are old enough to be in the public domain.

As a younger man, about the same time that the Violence Against Women Act was signed into law, I heard Tori Amos’ “Me and a Gun” as well as Trent Reznor’s “Big Man with a Gun.” I hadn’t known about their relationship at the time. At the time, almost nobody spoke or wrote much about VAWA. Our music, our poetry, and our laws tend to ignore the silent sufferers unless we must actively seek out those trained by love and pain to hide.